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Thursday, 27 October 2016

That time Hugh Laurie helped me steal something

In the early 90's when I was a
fresh-faced whippersnapper of a juggler, mainly making my rent from
street performing, I got my first proper agent. He was a lovely chap,
with an office just around the corner from my street pitch in Covent
Garden, which was festooned with 8x10s of bodybuilders, martial
artists, mimes, and associated people who specialised in physical
skills. As a young bouncy circus monkey, he saw some potential in me,
started putting me up for castings, and indeed, landed me some fun
jobs.

Yes. Me. Shut up.

Mostly, I ended up in late 80's/early
90's pop videos. Which means that if you scour YouTube for a couple
of early Shakespear's Sister songs, and one particularly dirgey ditty
by Sarah Brighman, there, more often than not under some fucking
clown make-up, I am. The Shakespear's Sister ladies were delightful,
and I remember playing with Siobhan's young daughter at the time, who
made it into one of the video's dressed as a bumble bee. What most of
these clips had in common were that they were directed by the
brilliant Sophie Muller, and when she was prepping to direct the
video for Annie Lennox's next single, I got another call.

The shoot for “Walking on Broken
Glass” took place on location over a long weekend in London, but
the cast all got called in the day before. It was, I guess, a homage
to things like “Dangerous Liaisons”, so we all got plopped in
front of a line of mirrors for complicated costume and powdered wig
fittings. By the middle of day 2, those wigs felt heavy and painful,
dragging on the pins that held them in place and giving everyone
matching headaches.

The vibe was a party – cool and
beautiful people, and staff serving drinks, and – hey – a juggler
entertaining them! But as opulent and beautiful as the location and
costumes were, all eyes were on the stars of the show. John
Malkovich, kinda sorta reprising his role from “Liaisons..”, and
Hugh Laurie, sorta kinda reprising his role from Blackadder.
Malkovich took it all quite seriously, struggling a little, I think,
to be able to have the kind of fun that Laurie was able to have. And
my god, Hugh Laurie was amazing. And then there was Lennox. Draped in
spectacular red velvet, gliding around serenely, and treated by
everyone – correctly – like the queen. She radiated serene focus,
and, at least for me, that became the feel of the shoot. And after
the first take, when they'd hit playback and all the actors had heard
the song for the first time, we all tried to make sure she saw us
grinning at how good it was.

For me though, it was all about Hugh
Laurie. I was already a fan, and a totally star struck at working in
the same room as him (more so than Malkovich, I'm afraid). As part of
the set dressing a harpsichord stood in the corner of the set, and
between shots, the talented son of a gun just sat down and played it.
There was a key scene where Lennox's character gets drunk and angry –
in the final cut the camera cuts a few times to Laurie's face as he
desperately tries to calm her down. I remember vividly when that was
shot. They just put the camera on him, and let him go. For minutes
upon minutes he improvised various different ways of trying to defuse
the situation – firm, embarrassed, ignoring it, laughing it off,
getting angry, being patronising... he just kept going and going, to
a silent, rapt room of actors. When Sophie finally told him they had
more than enough, everyone clapped.

Something else that the angry drunk
Annie Lennox did in the video, and lets face it, the thing that
really spoiled the party for everyone, was barge past the juggler. We
shot it a couple of times with me just being pushed to one side and
dropping my balls, and then I was asked if I would be ok actually
falling down. I've always been very ok with falling down. It's one of
my key skills. So, on the next take, she pushes past me, and I take a
good old fashioned back bump to the floor. They finish the shot, cut
is yelled, and everyone seems happy. Except for Annie, who hurries
over to me, asking if I'm ok, totally concerned that she had
accidentally, in the heat of the moment, actually thrown me to the
floor. I tell her, yeah, I'm fine, it was a pratfall, they told me to
go a little bigger, and then she's helping me up and telling me “oh,
very nice, very good”. And although it only lasts half a second,
and you can't really see it, that's the take they used.

On the second day, while they were
shooting something downstairs, myself and a few of the other actors
were sitting around on set, killing time, chatting about anything and
nothing in particular. I mentioned that it was my girlfriend's
birthday soon (she's now my wife), and I hadn't found a good main
present. As we're talking, Hugh Laurie wonders in and sits nearby. We
started joking that I should steal something from the set. Then we
started joking a little more specifically, that I should steal the
gorgeous crystal, gold-rimmed goblet that Annie Lennox uses in the
video. Then we slowly realised that she'd finished shooting all her
scenes with it. And then, Hugh Laurie is standing up, sidling over to
the table, taking the goblet, walking back, and giving it to me, with
a conspiratorial grin.

I stole it, gave it to Lesley for her
birthday, told her the story, and to this day, whenever that video
turns up there is giggling and pointing and yelling “Look! It's
your glass!”